The Billiards World Cup Association (BWA) three-cushion billiard world championship was won in 1996 for an unprecedented third consecutive year by Torbjörn Blomdahl of Sweden. It was his sixth career world title, as he had previously won the BWA world’s event in 1988, 1991, 1992, 1994, and 1995.

The BWA championship is determined by a four-stop annual international tour with a round-robin format. Points are awarded in accordance with each player’s final position in each event and accumulate throughout the tour. Therefore, it is possible to win the world title without actually winning any of the qualifiers. Indeed, Blomdahl captured his 1994 championship in that exact manner, but that was far from the case in 1996. Blomdahl claimed his latest crown by finishing third at the Dutch Open, fourth at the Korean Open, and then first at both the Belgian Open and the tour finale, the Efes Pilsen Open in Istanbul. The tour runner-up was Dick Jaspers of The Netherlands, with Marco Zanetti of Italy in third overall. Eight-time U.S. national champion Sang Lee finished a close fourth.

Lee was perhaps even more impressive in an invitational tournament in Queens, N.Y., in late 1996. A field of 32 of North America’s finest carom players was reduced to 8 over two days of preliminary rounds. As national champion, Lee was seeded into the nine-player round-robin finals, but he accepted a very unusual handicap: he would play his games to 57 points, whereas all of his opponents would need only 40 points to win. Despite this onerous burden, Lee tied with two other players with 6-2 records and then prevailed in a play-off to capture a very hard-earned and prestigious championship. Lee’s points-per-inning (PPI) average was a stunning 1.594. Next-best was the 1.061 mark of tournament runner-up Pedro Piedrabuena, a stylish young player from Ecuador. No other contestant reached the 1.000 PPI threshold.

Pocket Billiards.

The Professional Billiards Tour (PBT), the principal organization representing the men’s pocket billiard professionals for the past decade, suffered what many industry observers believed could be fatal blows during 1997. RJ Reynolds’ Camel brand cigarettes, the PBT tour’s major sponsor in 1996, canceled their affiliation completely, citing "a lot of politics out there holding the game/sport up from getting a lot of corporate involvement." At the same time, Camel expanded its sponsorship of the American Poolplayers Association (a national amateur league pool organization) and announced plans to conduct a seven-stop "Camel Pro Billiard Series" with well over $500,000 in prize money. The series would be totally independent of any players’ group, with neither the PBT nor its newer rival, the Professional Cuesports Association (PCA), having any input or involvement in the venture, but all players would be eligible to participate.

Controversial PBT Commissioner Don Mackey, promising that bad prize-money checks from some 1996 PBT tour events would be made good, was also threatening litigation over the loss of Camel sponsorship. The PBT tour became essentially nonexistent, with a nine-month void on its 1997 tournament schedule. The PBT finally "released" its member players to participate in any tournament or event they wished. The PCA did only slightly better in generating tournaments, and both groups were, at best, leery about the new Camel series events.

The Women’s Professional Billiard Association (WPBA) concluded the tour year at the WPBA Nationals in Crystal City, Calif., where former English snooker star Allison Fisher was victorious. Given her stunning dominance on the tour, she easily won the 1996 women’s Player of the Year honours. She continued on the winning track in 1997, taking her second consecutive World Pool-Billiard Association world nine-ball title in October.

In the men’s ranks the conflicting sanctioning groups led Pool & Billiard Magazine to name both C.J. Wiley (PCA) and Johnny Archer (PBT) as 1996 Players of the Year. Both led their respective organization’s annual point standings; Wiley won the PCA inaugural Dallas (Texas) Million $ Challenge, and Archer took the 1996 PBT Pro Tour Championship in Providence, R.I.

A national nine-ball Senior Tour for players aged 50 and older was established by the Mizerak Group (headed by hall-of-famer Steve Mizerak). Player and fan response was enthusiastic, and the first eight tournaments produced eight different winners.

Dagenham, Eng., was the site for the third Mosconi Cup competition in December 1996, pitting seven-man squads from the U.S. and Europe in team competition. Although trailing 9-12 on the final day, the Americans pulled out a stunning comeback victory 15-13.

The Billiard Congress of America inducted Arthur ("Babe") Cranfield and Ruth McGinnis into the BCA Hall of Fame in ceremonies in Las Vegas, Nev. Cranfield was the only person to win the U.S national junior, national amateur, and world professional pocket billiard titles. McGinnis, who died in 1974, was acclaimed as women’s world champion 1932-40, had had a high run of 128 balls, and had toured the U.S. extensively, giving exhibitions.

Snooker

Snooker, too, was plagued with sponsorship problems in 1997. The world professional championship, held annually at Sheffield, Eng., stood to lose its lifeblood after 1997 when the British government proposed a ban on tobacco advertising, including the sponsorship of sporting events. Existing sponsorship contracts were later allowed to run their full course, which thereby granted the world championship and the Masters tournament at Wembley, London, a new lease on life, but alternative sponsorship had to be found within five years. The Grand Prix event at Bournemouth, Eng., in October was again unsponsored, but the annual U.K. championship at Preston in November was boosted by a £4 million sponsorship package for four years.

Four of the top 10 world-ranking events in 1997 were held outside the U.K.: two tournaments in Bangkok, the German Open in Bingen am Rhein, and the European Open in Malta. An invitational tournament was also played in Beijing. In October Stephen Hendry of Scotland received the Player of the Year award for the seventh time in eight years despite having lost the world title 18-12 to former world amateur champion Ken Doherty of Ireland in May.